The Story of My Teeth (11 page)

A
T THAT TIME OF
day, the only place open was Las Explicaciones, on the corner of Sonora and Las Torres. It’s famous because the coffee costs one peso, a round of bread five, and there are always several copies of that day’s paper. I stopped off for breakfast and asked for a newspaper, and a Nescafé to wet the Chinese fortune cookies Tacito had given me. I extracted the slips of paper on which the fortunes were written and then dunked and soaked each cookie until it was just soggy enough for me to swallow without fear of damaging my bare gums. The slips I put in my trouser pocket for later.

Besides myself, the only other customer in the café was a slender, circumspect young man, his face speckled with tobacco-colored freckles, deep in concentration. He was wearing a bright yellow three-piece suit that was too big for
him and a Panama hat. Seated at a table by a window through which the early morning light was beginning to enter, he was holding a pencil and silently writing in a notebook.

From my table, I asked what it was he was writing so much about. His eyes still on the notebook, he said he was just planning a relingo walk.

A
what
walk? I burbled in my newly acquired toothless old fool voice.

A walk around gaps, sir, around vacant lots, spaces without owners or fixed use, he clarified with those three elucidations.

I opened my mouth like a newly hatched chick, and, pointing to my edentate cavern, I said:

Empty spaces like this one?

The youth raised his eyes, finally interested in me. I took advantage of his attention to continue, being careful not to lose that interest:

What’s your name?

Jacobo de Voragine. But they call me Voragine.

What are you? A singer-songwriter? An artist?

No, he said in a melodramatic tone. I’m a writer and church tour guide in the city. I live by the latter and die by the former.

Ah! So you must know the writer who wrote a book and changed his teeth.

No, sir. Who’s he?

A writer who had all his teeth replaced after writing a book, that’s all.

Fabulous. Fascinating. Amazing, he said hesitatingly, unsure of his adjectives.

And by the way, Gustavo Sánchez Sánchez, or just Highway, at your service. Would you mind if I came and sat there in the sun with you? I don’t want to break your concentration.

Of course, be my guest, please take a seat; in any case, I haven’t had a single idea all morning.

I ordered three more Nescafés—two for me and one for him—and sat down opposite the young man. His bony hands were tipped, I noted, with the short nails of the nervous.

So you’re a newcomer to the neighborhood?

That’s right, sir.

And how do you intend to be a tour guide here if you don’t know the place?

No, the tourists don’t come here. I live in Ecatepec, but I give guided walking tours in the center of Mexico City.

Do you live alone?

No, with two brothers who work in the book trade. I don’t know their names, but between themselves they call each other Darling and Understanding, without distinction. They own a printing press and publisher called Rincón Cultural.

And why do you think you haven’t been able to write today?

I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because I’m terrified of irrelevance.

Irrelevance?

There are already too many things—he went on in the tone of the chronically ill—too many books, too many opinions. Anything I do will only add to the great pile of trash every person leaves behind him. Am I making sense?

Perfect sense. That’s why I’m an auctioneer.

You? You auction works of art?

Anything that comes my way.

For example?

For example, I can auction you my name. I’ve collected six homonyms. I call the series “Circular Gustavos,” because they have to be auctioned through riddled circumlocutions, like Statius’s epithets and periphrases.

How so?

So:

Pisces, Scorpio ascendant. Born in San Andrés, Chalchicamula, March 18, 1911. He was president of Mexico from 1964 to 1970, during which time he: disappeared students, militarily occupied the National Autonomous University of Mexico, imprisoned workers, sacked teachers, doctors, and railway men who were protesting about low wages. He died of colorectal cancer.

Who is it? I asked Voragine.

No idea, Highway. Sorry.

President Gustavo Díaz-Ordaz, of course. Let’s try another.

Born on April 19, 1801, under the sign of Taurus, Libra ascendant. Originator of the study of psychophysics and a visionary pioneer of experimental psychology. He also discovered the famous formula S = KlnI, which describes the nonlinear relationship between psychological sensations and impressions and the intensity of physical
stimuli. Active, atheist, womanizer, and a good-hearted man, he died on November 18, 1887.

Who am I referring to?

Sorry, no idea.

Gustav Theodor Fechner. Another:

Sagittarius, writer, fat, French.

Oh! Gustav Flaubert?

Yes, indeed.

O.K
., give me another.

O.K
.:

Cancer, Aquarius ascendant. He was born on July 7, 1860, and died May 18, 1911. Jewish, a native of Bohemia, he composed Mahler’s Symphonies, 1-10 but didn’t complete the tenth because he died before it was finished. He was married to Mrs. Alma Mahler, who also had relations with Walter Gropius, Franz Werfel, Klimt, Max Burkhard, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Oskar Kokoshka, and Johannes Hollsteiner, to name but a few.

Easy: Gustav Mahler.

Good, good. Another:

Sagittarius. She was a feminist born in Hamburg in 1868.

Is that all the information?

Yes, sorry.

I don’t know.

It’s Lida Gustava Heymann. I’ll give you one last one:

Cancer, Cancer ascendant. An astrological disaster. Lover and possible husband of Gustav Mahler’s wife. He was a symbolist painter prone to cluster migraines and erotic expression.

Gustav Klimt?

Correct.

Amusing, he said. But how do you auction the names?

I just do. What auctioneers auction, in the end, are just names of people, and maybe words. All I do is give them new content.

Explain?

You see, I’m like those people who scavenge in your garbage. But with pedigree. I expurgate; I find. I aromatize, clean, and disinfect. I recycle.

Young Jacobo de Voragine stared at his, as yet untouched, cup of Nescafé. He picked up the dispenser, tipped a disgusting quantity of sugar into the cup, and, using his pencil, stirred the coffee in a desultory fashion.

Let’s see. Read me what you’re writing now, I said, trying to keep the conversation alive.

But it’s nothing special, just a description of a corner.

I remained silent, waiting for him to begin. The young man hesitated for a moment, but then opened his notebook, cleared his throat, and read:

There’s a hardware store opposite the house I’ve moved into. I can see it from the window of the bathroom on the roof, the only place where I can smoke in silence. Every afternoon, while the men who serve in the hardware store are beginning to close up, the owner, a senile man, takes a folding chair out onto the sidewalk and starts sharpening the ends of the tacks that he has in a toolbox next to the leg of the chair. One by one, he sharpens them carefully on the curbside, and then throws them into the street. The ritual lasts no more than ten minutes. I flick my cigarette into the toilet and he folds up his chair.

That’s as far as I’ve got, he said, with a look that begged for approval.

It’s tender, I said.

Thanks.

And you have nice, small handwriting.

Thanks.

But it’s all wrong.

Why, sir?

It’s about Mr. Alfonso Reyes’s hardware store, right? La Higuera. The one on the corner of Durango and Morelos.

How could you tell?

Ah, little bird, that’s a long story. But the point is that your description is inaccurate, because Mr. Alfonso is not gaga and neither is he sharpening those tacks. He blunts them. He blunts the ones that are a bit bent, and, when
they’re properly blunt, he throws them into the street so that they don’t burst tires or bugger up cars.

And why doesn’t he throw them in the trash?

Because they rip the bags.

I see.

Look Jacobo, Voragine, young Jacobo Voragine, I think I can help you if you help me. You know, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.

I’m not sure if I can help you, sir; I’m not good for much. But go on.

I need to recover my dignities—my teeth, that is—because I can’t recycle anything without them, let alone eat or speak like a human being. And you lack money, time, freedom, peace, work experience, street life, women, stimulants, and everything you surely need for your masterpieces.

That’s true, sir.

But you can’t have any of that. You can’t, because you commute two hours every day to grimy downtown Mexico City, where you work for some son of a bitch who exploits you, and you go back to your apartment, where other young men like you live—all dressed up just as strangely—and the house is a pigsty, so you start washing the dishes, sweeping up the hairballs on the floor, folding
T
-shirts, hanging up odd socks. You make yourself a sandwich with just cheese, because the ham has all gone snotty green, and by the end of the day, you’re so tired and depressed that you’ve lost the will to sit down and do the one thing you love.

I’m speechless, Mr. Highway. How did you know about the hairballs?

I’m no babe in arms.

So I see. But I still don’t understand what you’re getting at, sir.

That you become a real artist.

And how do you suggest I do that? he asked, in an almost crotchety voice, straightening his hat.

That’s where I come in. I can give you a lot of things, like free lodging, for example. An artist needs free lodging. I have a mansion in Calle Disneylandia, with the best collection of objects that’s ever been seen. And don’t go thinking I’m some sort of degenerate like Michael Jackson. I like ladies my own age.

Free lodging? And what else?

I can give you an education.

Such as?

Such as how to avoid paying for your meals, or how to ride buses for free. I can also give you street. I know this neighborhood better than anyone, and I can give you all that knowledge. This is how it will work: I tell you the story of every corner; I introduce you to my contacts; I take you under my wing, as they say. In time, when you really know this place, you can open your own tourist business here. End of story.

And where do I find the tourists?

They’ll come on their own. The important thing is to tell stories about the neighborhood. As soon as you’ve got those, there’ll be people flocking to hear them. Places and things are made up of stories.

I’m not so sure about that.

Isn’t telling stories what you do?

Yes.

Well, have a bit of faith, won’t you?

Let’s suppose you’re right. That I say yes to your proposal. What are you going to ask me to do in return?

Almost nothing. You just write for me.

Write what?

Whatever I commission you to do. First I need you to write my story, the story of my teeth. I tell it to you, you just write it. We sell millions, and I get my teeth fixed for good. Then, when I die, you write about that too. Because a man’s story is never complete until he dies. End of that task.

And what else?

Well, then, if we rub along well together, I can offer you other jobs.

Such as?

Such as, I need someone to catalog my collection of collectibles, because I auction only my own collections now. I’ve got the world’s best collection. And as I haven’t got much longer in this world, I want to hold a grand auction, for which I need a catalog. But let’s not jump the gun. For the time being, you just write my dental autobiography.

The melancholy young Voragine finally smiled, but he made no reply.

What are you smiling at?

Nothing. That it would be your biography, not your autobiography.

Ah! I see that you’re going to be a good writer too.

Why do you say that?

Because when you smile, you don’t show your teeth. Real
writers never show their teeth. Charlatans, in contrast, flash that sinister crescent when they smile. Check it out. Find photos of all the writers you respect, and you’ll see that their teeth remain a permanently occult mystery. I believe the only exception is the Argentinian Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis.

Borges?

The selfsame. Blind and Argentinian. But he doesn’t count because he was blind, so he probably couldn’t picture himself smiling—at least, not with the smile he had when he was blind, if you know what I mean.